The Crisis of Liberal Interventionism and the Return of War

Wolfgang Wagner, Cornelia Baciu, Falk Ostermann

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Liberal interventionism is in crisis, being weakened both from within and without. From Kabul to Kyiv and beyond, the contributions to our thematic issue reveal that the crisis of liberal interventionism has unraveled differently than previously understood. In countries of the Global North, it stretched out in different ways, depending on the political culture, party/coalition in power, or institutional path dependencies. In countries of the Global South, mandate‐specific benchmarks, in addition to the neglect of local agencies by both interveners and domestic elites, produced unintended consequences and a backlash effect. The articles in this thematic issue contribute to a better understanding of the crisis of liberal interventionism by unpacking the global fragmentation of collective security instruments, patterns and conditions of foreign policy change in liberal democracies, intervention failure in Afghanistan, alternative forms of interventionism like the one of the Wagner Group, international orientation change through the Zeitenwende, or counter‐terrorism and deterrence postures. To conclude, the thematic issue critically investigates whether singing the swansong of liberal interventionism is premature.
Original languageEnglish
Article number7865
Pages (from-to)1-6
Number of pages6
JournalPolitics and Governance
Volume12
Early online date14 Feb 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Funding

We would like to thank Sibel Oktay, Anna Geis, and Neil Renic for intense readings of drafts of the thematic issue. Participants of the panels “From Kabul to Kyiv” at the ISA Annual Convention in Montréal and the DVPW Annual Conference in International Relations at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, provided helpful comments on previous versions of this editorial. We are also thankful to all participants in the authors’ workshop at the University of Copenhagen in July 2022. The workshop was financially supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (Grant CF22–0019) and the Centre for Military Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen.

FundersFunder number
Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen
CarlsbergfondetCF22–0019

    Keywords

    • Afghanistan war
    • Ukraine war
    • liberal international order

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